A huge part of success is accountability. Holding yourself responsible for your actions and choices speaks volumes to the type of education and upbringing you had, and is a determinant for how you set and achieve goals. This is true in any aspect of life, but it’s arguably easiest to observe in training and nutrition.

What’s Your Excuse?

So you’ve made that first step by joining a gym. That’s great! You show up to class sort of consistently, albeit always late, and you make an effort to ask the coach the finer details of building muscle, eating right, and training properly for your goals. But things just aren’t going your way because “life happens” and other things are to blame rather than yourself. Eventually, you fall off and blame the gym for your failure. We all know this person. Here’s the hard truth: everyone has things that are out of their control; everyone has the capacity to learn for themselves; and everyone has 24 hours in a day. It’s up to you to manage accordingly.

nfortunately, the contemporary mindset is that it’s okay to just accept that there are greater forces at work causing problems, which creates the false sense of entitlement for a lot of people who feel their opinions and excuses really matter. There’s always some kind of scapegoat. Sugar made you overweight? No. Eating too much made you overweight. You’re always late because (insert excuse here)? No. You failed to plan accordingly to make it on time and respect the time of others. You’re not seeing body fat loss or strength gain because the coach or gym? No. You failed to commit to the hard work and discipline of a consistent, tough, and intelligent training plan. This list can go on.

A big problem with lack of accountability is that it blinds you to the larger perspective (context) of the path you’re taking with your fitness. All too often people ask “how?” without following up with “why?”. It’s a defense mechanism to blame everything but you, and the convoluted cultures of gyms can enable this even more. Introspection is the first place to start if you want to resolve the issues you struggle with in health, but it’s tough on the ego and even tougher when you’re in an industry that thrives off alarmism and quick answers/solutions. Truthfully, there’s really only one person who’s going to be able to get you to your goals. Hold yourself accountable for your knowledge, choices, and actions. Sure unexpected situations arise. Guess what? This is true for everyone in the world. So for those still approaching their life without accountability (and I know all us coaches and teachers know these people), please grow up.